


The Parent Trap

by VirginiasWolf



Series: Life Moves On [25]
Category: Death in Paradise
Genre: F/M, mentions of childhood trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:41:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25946038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VirginiasWolf/pseuds/VirginiasWolf
Summary: Being a new parent is hard, but Richard receives a compliment from an unexpected source.
Relationships: Camille Bordey/Richard Poole
Series: Life Moves On [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1456375
Comments: 3
Kudos: 5





	The Parent Trap

Richard can feel the panic rising inside of him. Tonight marks the first night of what may be the most awkward and challenging two weeks of his life and of course it all has to start with the stove deciding it won't start.

  
"Oh bollocks," he can't help but mutter bitterly and apparently not quiet enough.

  
"Richard, is everything all right?" The voice from the other room is not that of Camille, but of her mother who is staying with them in London so that she can meet her first grandchild.

  
"Yep. Fine." Richard tries to lie. The last thing he wants is Catherine assuming he can't provide for her family and insisting on taking her daughter and granddaughter back to Saint Marie.

  
"I should probably go check on him. Maman, can you watch Emily?" That response actually is Camille and he can't decide if he is more pleased or worried that she will soon discover his predicament.

  
The moment Camille walks into the kitchen, Richard quietly gestures to the faulty stove. No need to tip off her mother about how it won't turn on. In response, Camille walks over to it and messes with the knobs for a moment before realizing what he already has and sighing in frustration.

  
However, her next move involves the one thing he has been trying to avoid. "Maman, can you come look at the stove?" So much for keeping Catherine in the dark about their woes.

  
This third pair of hands only proves what Richard already knows. They are going to have to call a repairman and it will have to be tomorrow because everything is certainly closed by now. This can only mean one thing. He will have to serve takeout to his mother-in-law. Certainly this will be another check on Catherine's list of why her family cannot stay in London.

  
The takeout menus come out of the top drawer, and it is revealed that Emily apparently really wants to order pizza, which leads to Richard also learning that this painfully mundane of dishes is also something that Catherine has never ate, so this becomes the dish of the night. Minutes later, two pizzas are ordered, one with the completely normal toppings of sausage and mushroom which he will be splitting with his daughter, and another that will be shared by his wife and mother-in-law with the abhorrent combination of shrimp and jalapeno peppers. He certainly hopes that Camille intends to brush her teeth thoroughly before the next time she kisses him.

  
The pizzas arrive forty-five minutes later with a side of bread-sticks and despite the look of confusion from the delivery driver over the shrimp and jalapeno atrocity, Richard manages to convince himself that Catherine is not plotting his murder and decides the rest of the night can only go smoothly.

  
This lasts for all of five minutes before hot pizza combines with a crowded kitchen and tiny hands and a plate slips from his daughter's grasp only to shatter onto the floor where one of the tiny shards proceeds to become lodged in her bare foot. That's when the wailing, far too loud for one so small, begins and Richard finds himself frozen for a second as Camille heroically swoops into action grabbing the distressed child in her arms and carting her off towards the bathroom first aid kit.

  
Richard only manages to snap back to attention when Catherine hands him a dust pan and even then, his mind and line of vision keep wandering in the direction of the bathroom where the wailing continues to emanate from the other side of the now closed door. Surely he should be doing something more to help.

  
His worries are not eased when Camille and Emily emerge from the bathroom minutes later and the former immediately sends the latter upstairs for a pair of socks before insisting to Richard that they need to talk inside the home office.

  
Now Richard is confronted with another closed door, except this time he is on the more private side of it. For a minute Camille just paces as if she is having trouble finding the right words. "Do you know why Emily was wailing?"

  
"Because she was in pain?" Richard guesses.

  
"No, well I assume that was also a factor, but she thought I was going to beat her for breaking the plate and that we would send her back to the orphanage. She said that is what her last mother did to her." The anger and hysteria rises with each word and Richard naturally can't help but feel the same.

  
"What kind of monster would beat a child, especially over a broken plate?" It's a half rhetorical question that Richard doesn't actually expect to be answered, and certainly not in a quiet, timid voice that is completely unlike how his wife would normally speak.

  
"My father would."

  
"Oh," is all Richard can think to respond because this vulnerable, raw admission shocks him so much. She has already freely admitted that her past is filled with many chapters of pain and suffering, even going as far as to attribute her sometimes acidic tongue as a way to keep out the bad, but somehow it had never crossed his mind that her father was more than just a philanderer.

  
"Maman thinks I don't remember any of it, but I know that he didn't leave us. She kicked him out after he put me in the hospital...I was the same age that Emily must have been when she..." Camille cuts herself off, apparently far too caught up in horror and anguish to even finish her words.

  
For what is neither the first time, nor likely to be the last, all Richard can think to do is hold her.

  
-  
The next morning Richard leaves Camille asleep in bed with the intention of sneaking out to the local bakery and buying breakfast for the entire household. 

  
Instead, when he attempts to quietly retrieve the car keys from a hook he is confronted. "Good morning, Richard."

  
Richard tries to hide how close he has come to jumping from fear as he turns to the speaker. " Catherine, why are you up so early?"

  
"I am used to opening a bar at quite an early hour. You are leaving?"

  
"To pick up breakfast."

  
"I am coming with you."

  
Richard is unsure how he feels about this, but if there is one thing that he knows, it is that he is terrified of arguing with the elder Bordey.

  
At first the drive is silent, but then Catherine asks a question he has been dreading. "Can we talk about last night?"

  
"I suppose you are about to list everything that I did wrong." Richard sounds far more bitter than he intends.

  
He keeps his eyes on the road, but even so he can sense that the look Catherine is giving him is less hostile than he assumes it would be. "No, I was going to comment on how naturally you seem to have taken to fatherhood."

  
Part of Richard wants to swell up with pride. This is certainly a big compliment coming from Catherine, but he can't help but feel that she is completely mistaken. He certainly wants to protect and care for his daughter, even after such a short time of knowing her, but he is far from a natural at this whole thing. "Camille's the one who seems to have the right instincts. I have no idea what I'm doing except for what I've read in books."

  
"Is that what you really believe?" It is as if Catherine lives to entrap him with questions she knows he will never properly answer. The woman is evil.

  
"Yep." Richard decides to keep his answer as short as possible. This woman and her infuriating Frenchness will not get under his skin this time.

  
"Camille believes that you are the one with the proper instincts and she is the one who is lost."

  
They have now arrived at the bakery and Richard pauses to turn off the ignition before finally facing his mother-in-law. "Perhaps neither of us know what we are doing then."

  
"Or perhaps you both do." At this Catherine exits the passenger seat before coming around to the driver's door with an expression that makes Richard wonder if he had hallucinated the tenderness she had just shown in her voice. "We must hurry. You will not want to keep my daughter waiting."

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to toss out suggestions for more misadventures that happen during these two weeks when Catherine is in London.


End file.
